Wednesday Walk - The Grove

Here is a walk areound the grove for this #wednesdaywalk by @tattoodjay

One of the first times I was in the Chicago suburbs I visited the grove. This ancient turtle was there a good 20+ years ago. Now I finally returned again to bring my daughter to see all the critters and they've upgraded everything. This ancient 150 year old turtle is still here but now has a bigger water enclosure. He might live well past 200 years.

Some of the upgrades include lots of strange preserved bones and specimens in jars lol. There's event an alligator snapper skull.

They've added some large aquariums for local fish species like alligator gar, bass and sturgeons.

This gar was a good three feet long. Their teeth are quite spooky looking, hence the name alligator gar.

They also have a large turtle enclosure. Most of them are red eared sliders, but they also have some other native species like soft shelled turtles and other water turtles.

This huge grizzly has been added to the exhibits. The thing has to be 10 feet tall.

I thought this was a bear skeleton at first but it turns out it is a replica of giant sloths that used to live here before the ice age. This thing is even bigger than the grizzly and it used to slowly crawl up giant trees that lived in the oxygen rich environment before the ice age.

Here's a grassfrog skeleton. I don't think I've ever seen a grassfrog with its skin on around here.

They have some human specimens as well. This one is a replica of a Native American that was found in the area. Quite small frame due to diet and nutrition.

My daughter was really wondering what was in these strange jars. Turns out there are all sorts of creepy crawly specimens here.

This jar especially looked spooky with a variety of small corn snakes and crawdads and possibly a lamprey and millipede in there too. Not sure if this is the biologists junk drawer of preserved specimens lol.

Outside of the grove there are 80 acres of historical structures and trails. This is a replica of structures the Potawatomi used to build out of tree bark.

They even made larger garage-like structures for their air force... j/k I suspect the larger structure might have been for animals.

Elsewhere on the property there are old settler structures and they do historical reenactments of how it was to live as a pioneer etc. Sadly all of them were closed for the winter season, so we'll probably be coming back here for the full experience in the summer.

Now its time to walk off some energy. My daughter really loved running the trails picking up sticks. Fortunately she avoided falling in the mud.

That's all for now, thanks for looking :-)